Digital influencers

: the impact that sponsorship disclosure has on consumers´ purchase intentions

Abstract

In the past few years, it has been noticed a fast growth of social media platforms, not only for entertainment but also as platforms where companies promote their products and/or services to consumers through a recent marketing strategy - influencer marketing. This new concept has been increasingly adopted by companies mostly due to the appearance, in recent years, of digital influencers and their influence on followers’ purchase intentions.This dissertation was developed in order to understand how the disclosure of sponsorship has an impact on consumers' purchase decision. It was considered expertise condition and product type - hedonic and utilitarian - as moderators, which may vary the purchase intentions of consumers under the condition of disclosure. Therefore, a survey was conducted with 232 valid responses obtained.The results demonstrate that sponsorship disclosure has no significant impact on consumers' purchase intentions, regardless of whether the product type is hedonic or utilitarian or whether the digital influencer is an expert in the field or not. The results also indicated that digital influencers who are perceived as experts are able to generate greater buying intentions in utilitarian products than those who are not perceived by consumers as such.

Date of Award	27 Jan 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	João Niza Braga (Supervisor)